#PAR@ ` TEXT ` Douvillier, Suzanne ThÄodore Vaillande1778╨1826dancer and mimeBorn in DÖle, France, probably on September 28, 1778, Suzanne Vaillande was apparently an illegitimate child. Little is known of her childhood beyond the fact that she attended school in Paris and may have studied dancing in the ballet school of the Paris OpÄra. By 1790 she was in Santo Domingo, French West Indies, where she formed a professional and personal alliance with Alexandre Placide, a multitalented theatrical figure. In 1791 they made their way to the United States, and in January 1792 Madame Placide, as she was billed (although they were not married), appeared at the John Street Theatre in New York City in The Bird Catcher, a ballet by Placide presented as an afterpiece to the regular program. The Bird Catcher is generally held to be the first ballet piece to have been presented in New York. They remained in New York for several months and presented a number of ballets, including The Woodcutters, The Old Schoolmaster Grown Young, and The Philosophers, or The Merry Girl, and several pantomimes. Later in 1792 they appeared in Philadelphia and Boston; in 1793 they were in Newport; and in 1794 they settled in Charleston, South Carolina. There, in addition to Placide╒s works, Madame Placide appeared in Maximilien Gardel╒s La Chercheuse d╒Esprit and Le DÄserteur Franìais, Jean-Georges Noverre╒s Les Caprices de GalathÄe, and in 1796 her own Echo and Narcissus. In June 1796 Placide fought a duel with Louis Douvillier, a singer and dancer who had joined the company a year earlier, over the affections of Madame Placide. In the aftermath she married Douvillier. She and her husband performed in Norfolk, Virginia, Philadelphia, New York, and elsewhere before settling in New Orleans in 1799. She remained on the stage in ballet and pantomime until 1818. She was the first woman to work as a choreographer in America, and from about 1813 she was probably also the first to design and paint stage scenery. She died in New Orleans on August 30, 1826. εstyl ` ! ¬ ' 5¬ 1 5¬ B !I ╡ !I ┼ !I !I !I ═ !I ▄ !I ▐ !I ■ !I !I ' !I ' !I = !I B !I W !I p !I ê !I ₧ !I ░ !I ┤ 5¬ ╡ !I link `
